Lutheran moves past Belvidere North

The Rockford Lutheran Crusaders are moving on to their fourth straight boys regional basketball championship final.

Brenda Young

The Rockford Lutheran Crusaders are moving on to their fourth straight boys regional basketball championship final.

The No. 1 seeded Crusaders finally saw their shots fall in the second half, which were enough to get past No. 4 seeded Belvidere North 63-46 in the Marengo regional semifinal game Wednesday.

Despite their small size, the Crusaders pressed the Blue Thunder, driving to the middle and kicking the ball out for key shots.

Something that Belvidere North had a difficult time doing consistently.

“Lutheran knocked down open shots when they had it,” Blue Thunder coach Darrin Sisk said. “They did a good job of pressuring us when we were running our offense. We just did not execute offensively the way we wanted to be successful against them.”

Lutheran finally shook off the Blue Thunder in the fourth period, but not before they made another late run cutting the lead to eight on Jack Adams’ 3-point play. Green scored on back-to-back possessions, and Widstrom hit another 3-pointer to put Lutheran ahead 50-35 with 3:52 remaining.

“I never took it upon myself to be a scorer early in my career,” Widstrom said. “This season, I’ve had the opportunity to shoot the ball more. We have other playmakers that end up getting double-teamed and they leave me open so I shoot.”

North finished its first season at 7-19 overall. Adams led the Blue Thunder with 14 points and 13 rebounds. Jake Billon added 11.

With the win, Lutheran (15-10) will play either No. 2 Belvidere or No. 3 Marengo in Friday’s regional final.